FWIW, I said no to all. I don't think we should edit history. If people in that place and time thought a memorial was appropriate and necessary, let it stand. Try to understand them and what the memorial represents. Feel strongly enough there are other worthy things to remember about them / that time, put up you own damn memorial.

As a Richmond native, I'm depressed at the near-certainty that one or more of the statues on Monument Avenue are going to be torn down. No doubt replaced by new statues of politically-correct luminaries such as Arthur Ashe. These figures have stood for over 100 years and are part of the landscape of the city. The area itself is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Activists have already defaced the monuments multiple times, of course. So instead of protecting the monuments, the mayor has already stated he would like to tear them down.

I suppose he should also pave over the cobblestones, as they were probably laid with slave labor and are thus a constant reminder of things that no one currently living had to experience.

It is a good thing that it reflects "Yankee sensibilities." Jefferson Davis and other traitors to our country were killing our righteous soldiers because they wanted to continue the evilness of slavery. Why would any decent community want to give them great honor in their town square?

I only voted yes to Paterno, because the only reason to have a statue of him is his achievements, and the way Paterno's crimes are wound up with his achievements taint the whole thing. Penn is allowed a take-back on his statue since they didn't know at the time.

Nobody who ever put up a statue of Robert E. Lee was unaware he commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

That article is a bit disingenuous. Grant received slaves from his father in law as a wedding present. He manumitted them, but was none the less a slave holder for a short time. Teddy Roosevelt's mother was from Georgia, the daughter of a slave holder, and sister of 3 Confederate officers (one serving under Raphael Semmes on the CSS Alabama). Two of TR's uncles were not party the the post war amnesty due to their "activities" abroad and spent the rest of their lives living in Liverpool. Of course none of that gets mentioned.

I find it disappointing that 5% believe a statue of George Washington should come down. And 17% want to remove Teddy Roosevelt? Not as long as there's breath in my body!!!Some people have gone off the deep end and, instead of treating them like the nut cases they are, we are allowing them to make policy.

Certainly all statues honoring white cis males need to come down as they are constant reminders of the misogyny and the institutional racism and sexism that permeates our culture.

- - - -

On a serious note, where does it stop? Confederate statues invite the individual to consider the reasons why these people fought for the Confederacy. Their brilliance and fortitude tell us that winning the war wasn't easy. God made Americans to be tenacious fighters, and we should never fight each other.

It's a pity that we're erasing that history:1. People will fail to realize how the Civil War got started, particularly the stupidity on both sides that caused conversation and negotiation to fail.2. People will fail to understand the terrible costs of underestimating their opponents and underestimating the real impact of a civil war.3. People will fail to realize the terrible political and social costs of letting emotions govern their decision making.

Interesting. I wish there were a "no opinion" option for some - For example, I personally wouldn't have taken the statue of Joe Paterno down, but I'm not troubled by the fact that those in charge chose to.

My test goes to what are they remembered for - if it's something that we choose to celebrate (i.e., the founding), then absolutely, leave it. If it's something that we don't (role in the confederacy, with no other substantial historical significance), then we shouldn't celebrate that with a monument. I'm not sure where Taney falls on that, BTW - yes, he's remembered for Dred Scott, but he was a SCOTUS justice, which is a substantial achievement in itself. I assume that there are other statues of SCOTUS justices out there?

I don't think that it's editing history to remove monuments - those are placed specifically to celebrate, not to denote history. There are other mechanisms for history alone. The editing history argument would indicate that no monuments could ever be removed, which can't be right.

There are only two statues in Mississippi honoring Medgar Evers. (Both on private property.) He was a truely great American hero. There are scores of statues in public places honoring traitor Jefferson Davis. Both are sons of Mississippi. Replace scoundrel Davis with with statues of true heros like Evers.

I wouldn't take down any of them. All of them, no matter their notoriety or even crimes, are part of our history. You can't erase our history without erasing us, the United States. And that's what leftists want. You cannot appease the left. So, the statutes stay. Resist the leftist mofos. Sheesh.

Not just Margaret Sanger, but everyone dead and living that advocates for selective-child (i.e. denial of human dignity), under a layer of legal privacy, no less. As well as Planned Parenthood's processing of profitable parts from aborted babies. So, Cecile et al would also have to be censured.

Also, all of the officers and acolytes of class diversity including color diversity, sex diversity, and other political constructs that deny individual dignity, selectively.

As well as proponents of "clean" wars including social justice adventures that target native people, open mass abortion fields, and is a first-order forcing of catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform.

And proponents of redistributive change, because the "Jews" have too much.

Black people in the US are a minority and a particularly powerless one at that. Their only political relevance is as a tool in inter-white factional struggles - as make-weight votes, or as an object of propaganda, a mcguffin in a story to give some plausibility to the drama. Being a tool is a very poor position.

That is the insect-politics analysis.

The correct long term strategy for black people is integration with the powerful majority, hence the adoption of all majority tribal markers. Feelings dont come into it except as a manifestation that can be manipulated, engineered.

If only we had written rules already in place. A thought? It is insanely radical. Demand that the decisions become politicized. By that I mean that elected people make the decision. If you don't like that, you can work hard, get people elected that represent your position. It goes without saying that if you fail at the ballot box, you are the one out of step.

The correct long term strategy for black people is integration with the powerful majority, hence the adoption of all majority tribal markers.

Assimilation and integration, including the social benefits that come from working together, rather than in opposition to each other. Proponents of color diversity (i.e. judgment of people by the color of their skin), including color supremacists, should be marginalized, and their antithesis: judgement of people by the content of their character (e.g. principles), promoted.

The NYTimes can't help but purposely mis-frame the issue to support its leftwing narrative.

The 1st Question: Whether any statues need to come down.

The 2nd Question: If so, who decides? The local authorities or leftwing mobs?

The 3rd Question: If so, which statues? There's probably some votes to take down the new Martin Luther King, Jr. statue DC near the Mall. Is that off-limits?

I did not grow up in the South. I don't think there are any statues here in California of Jefferson Davis. More so, I'm not a fan of Jefferson Davis. But I am a fan of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, even though they were on the losing side.

Yes, I can sympathize with black folks who aren't too fond of the Confederate Flag or monuments and statues to a distant past. That is legit. But, at least, they can solace in all the Northern Republicans who fought and died, to free their ancestors.

Nonetheless, it is remarkable to me, that under 8 years of Obama, somehow, this issue didn't come up. Why now? Is it really nothing more than a futile leftwing psycho-drama? "We haven't yet toppled Trump, so we are going to topple statues?"

Bay Area Guy said...."Nonetheless, it is remarkable to me, that under 8 years of Obama, somehow, this issue didn't come up. Why now? Is it really nothing more than a futile leftwing psycho-drama? "We haven't yet toppled Trump, so we are going to topple statues?" If so, sorry, not interested in their bullshit."

I have heard that sales of 1984 by George Orwell are up this year, but the funny thing is that I really doubt the left sees their behavior as eerily close to the state run by Big Brother. Who really thinks that sending all of our history down the memory-hole is a good idea?

The statues had meaning when erected. Removing them erases that meaning both the good and the bad.

Take the statue of Jefferson Davis down from the pedestal and put it on the ground with the original plaque. Then put up a new statue, it could be Arthur Ashe, or Medgar Evars, or Oprah with a new plaque:

"This location marks where the statue of Jefferson Davis was erected in 190X. The people of that time with the power to fund and erect the statue thought highly of Jefferson Davis as a symbol worth presenting here in the town square.

The people of 2017 do not want to forget the attitudes and beliefs of those that erected the Jefferson Davis statue, because those are important things to remember and this statue is a reminder of that.

Jefferson Davis born in 1808, President of the Confederacy in rebellion against the United States (1861-1865), died in 1893.

However, the people of 2017 want to honor a different son of Mississippi, Medgar Evers in this location. Medgar Evers was amazing because blah blah blah...

Medgar Ever born in 1925, worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi and for voting rights was assassinated in 1963.

Let these statues stand as reminders to where Mississippi was and how it has changed."

Anyone with sufficient mass and velocity to impact history nearly always has a mixed legacy. Should we honor the legacy of Columbus as a brave explorer or as a colonial exploiter? Is it either/ or?....Some otherwise virtuous Americans were racists or slaveholders. Do such flaws negate any other virtue or accomplishment they demonstrated? Why is intolerance the supreme high vice than can admit to neither mitigation nor forgiveness?......Are there any lessons to be learned from the examples of Cromwell, Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao? There are many statues raised to iconoclasts but those statues have beenless durable than those of the men they toppled.........Does anyone truly believe that Robert E. Lee was a worse person than Peter the Great or Napoleon?

Where's Thomas Jefferson? C'mon, people, where's your moral compass? It's disgusting enough that only minorities of NYT readers possess the simple decency to demand the removal of Christopher Columbus and George Washington, but slave-owning known White Man Jefferson doesn't even make the list. And where's that appalling racist Lincoln?

In 2017 we should be addressing and aiming to solve the fundamental problem: white people - their insidious continued presence, the vast institutionalized cancer of their civilization in the New World (and the Old World, for that matter!) - not quibbling about some statue of some individual white like Nathan Bedford Forrest. The big picture is being lost here.

Look, as much as I agree that Stephen "Hitler" Foster's bones should be dug up and his soul anathematized, time is short, and Nazis and KKKers in their hundreds of thousands are jack-booting their way across the land, reportedly heading to the Lindbergh terminal at MPS to join forces - which if they succeed, God help us all. The only way to stop them is to get on with tearing down or completely re-purposing the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial now.

I look forward to the glorious day when (like the Starbucks in the mall in that old New Yorker cartoon), every monument in the country is a copy of the statue of MLK on the National Mall. (Though I hear even MLK might be a bit problematic. Tainted by reconciliation with whitey, or something.)

"How do we assess..."

I keep wondering who they mean by "we".

(But that's nowhere near the wonderment I feel that there are people out there who consume articles like this in bland equanimity, as if there were something reasonable and "thoughtful" going on here, unable to recognize a predator lunging at their throat.)

I have heard that sales of 1984 by George Orwell are up this year, but the funny thing is that I really doubt the left sees their behavior as eerily close to the state run by Big Brother. Who really thinks that sending all of our history down the memory-hole is a good idea?

Much like their copies of Dreams From My Father, the average progressive copy of 1984 is only purchased so that it can sit on the coffee table and impress all of their progressive friends who also have copies of 1984 sitting on their coffee tables. You're not expecting them to read the damn thing are you?

William: Does anyone truly believe that Robert E. Lee was a worse person than Peter the Great or Napoleon?

Well, aside from the dumbest (all of them) useful idiots taking their marching orders from the instigators, no. But that's neither here nor there, because none of this is about any kind of moral re-evaluation. It's about power and resentment, and it's tribal.

I'm sure the people instigating the worst of the Red Guard thugs and vandals started out masking their intent with earnest chin-stroking "thought" pieces asking things like, golly gee, "[h]ow do we assess the contributions of — and memorials to — people who did great things, but terrible ones, too? Is there a difference between famous men guilty of injustice and those whose fame was inseparable from it?" How indeed.

Blogger Hunter said...I only voted yes to Paterno, because the only reason to have a statue of him is his achievements, and the way Paterno's crimes are wound up with his achievements taint the whole thing. Penn is allowed a take-back on his statue since they didn't know at the time.

Once you get past the cover-up of organized ass-raping of ten year old boys in the locker room, Joe did a heckuva job for Penn State.

Blogger William said...Anyone with sufficient mass and velocity to impact history nearly always has a mixed legacy.

Pretty much. But I might extend this to virtually all past peoples regardless of their impact on history. When we judge past people with 2017 eyes using a 2017 value system, we're really being ridiculously unfair and one dimensional in our thinking.

Historically speaking there is no group of humans, no nation, no tribe of people, and no culture that doesn't have blood on their hands in some way shape or form. Traditionally we would cherry pick people and events to highlight, focus on, and mythologize while ignoring or downplaying the more unseemly ones. But these days we tend to focus far too much on the negative and unseemly things. It's become fashionable to hate ourselves, our historical icons, and our history. Winning political arguments by shaming is far more important than the actual truth, which is usually more complex and nuanced.

Of course it'd be better that we acknowledge everything, the good and the bad. But unfortunately if the historical truth doesn't serve as a weapon to fight in the cultural war, many people aren't interested in it.

Can we finally please get around to removing the name of the scurrilous slave-holder from the state capitol of Wisconsin? And replacing it with a name that is not offensive. I'm thinking "Fluffy." "The University of Wisconsin, Fluffy" -- that has a nice ring to it, no?

mockturtle said...I find it disappointing that 5% believe a statue of George Washington should come down. And 17% want to remove Teddy Roosevelt? Not as long as there's breath in my body!!!Some people have gone off the deep end and, instead of treating them like the nut cases they are, we are allowing them to make policy.Proving only that 5% of the people were assholes at the moment the question was asked.

fluffy... We need an alternative that is less controversial and with less negative associations in "diverse" circles.

That said, we also need to address the history of black African Americans who held slaves, and new arrivals that still do today, as well as native Americans (a.k.a. Indians)who held others as slaves including other native Americans.

The real experts in the business of destroying monuments are ISIS commanders. The progressive leftists should contract with them to prepare a list of all the monuments in the United States that have to come down. This will end all the bickering.

"....for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing & all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing & christianizing Children of Pagans as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences and also of English Youth and any others."

Bill Clinton DEDICATED a 7-foot-3-inch statue to his mentor, J. William Fulbright in 2002 at the University of Arkansas.

For decades Fulbright worked to keep the races segregated through state force. He signed the Southern Manifesto (he helped edit it, actually), opposed Brown v. Board, filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He even voted against Hawaiian statehood to keep its large non-white population out of the union.

Before leaving the spotlight, Fulbright took up another fight, going on national television in 1973 to warn Americans about the nefarious “Jewish influence” in Congress.

Note that Bill Clinton Clinton had begun his two terms as Arkansas governor by inviting the venomous old segregationist Orval Faubus, former governor of Arkansas, to a place of honor at his inaugural ceremony. In 1957, then Gov. Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to stop African Americans from attending Little Rock Central High School as part of federally ordered racial desegregation. (A bust of Faubus remains in the Arkansas capitol.) When Clinton ended his terms as governor, Arkansas was the only state in the union that did not have a Civil Rights statute.

Nonapod: Historically speaking there is no group of humans, no nation, no tribe of people, and no culture that doesn't have blood on their hands in some way shape or form. Traditionally we would cherry pick people and events to highlight, focus on, and mythologize while ignoring or downplaying the more unseemly ones. But these days we tend to focus far too much on the negative and unseemly things. It's become fashionable to hate ourselves, our historical icons, and our history.

What you describe is an aberration among a subset of a very small subset of humans - white people. And most of that subset most certainly don't hate themselves, far from it. Their making a comic book out of history is motivated by animus toward other white people. Genuine ethno/cultural masochism is probably rare. It's a front for varying degrees of narcissism, resentment, and moral vanity.

Nobody else on earth indulges in or tolerates this shit. Non-whites (and, lol, whites pretending to be "POC" for game points, see, e.g., "Hispanics") take advantage of the lunacy, naturally, as normal healthy self-interest dictates.

I'm wondering why Franklin D. Roosevelt (he of Japanese interment camp fame) isn't on the NYT list. Well, not really - he was a "northern" Democrat. Interesting that Strom Thurmond is on the list (he switched to GOP party), but not Robert Byrd (after all, he remained a Democrat).

To be fair, I don't think people object to the statue of Stephen Foster but rather to the darkie who sits at his feet. Same thing with that statue of Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps the Stephen Foster statue can remain unchanged, but they could recast the darkie into an image of Justin Bieber. Same thing with TR. Instead of him leading the natives to enlightenment, they could recast those statues into the images of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Gosh, New York Times readers understand the difference between George Washington and Jefferson Davis. Perhaps they can explain it to a few of the commenters here.

As for Robert E. Lee, he is still getting anonymous confederate soldiers killed, in the form of their statues being pulled down. I propose we take one of the Robert E. Lee statues now in storage to the Gettysburg Battlefield and place it on Cemetery Ridge at the high-water mark of the Confederacy with a plaque that reads, "Robert E. Lee was never here. He watched the carnage from the safety of the opposing ridge."

Bay Area Guy: Indeed, anything with a Spanish name of a Christian saint (San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Santa Barbara) needs to be toppled. We need a safe space from the past Conquistadors.

In the fine tradition of lefty skill in fooling a lot of the people for at least some of the time, 100% white descendants of the conquistadors have established a profitable line in passing themselves off as "people of color" who are being oppressed by "whites", lol.

I wonder what percentage of contemporary American schoolchildren think that Spanish is an indigenous New World language?

Theres nothing much to recommend the Spanish occupation of the New World. It should be noted, however, that their many atrocities were recorded and condemned by some of the Dominican friars who accompanied them. The Mayans, , the Incas, the Toltecs, the Aztecs were all capable of inflicting atrocities on those they conquered, but they were incapable of producing men like lasCasas to record and condemn those atrocties. So, advantage Spaniards......Zen moment: the Dominicans carried out the Spanish Inquisition, but they were, for the most part, advocates for the humane treatment of the Indians. More Zen: Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, was a converso Jew.......As noted earlier, it's possible to change the course of history, but not in a way that is universally beneficial to all mankind forever and ever.

"In the fine tradition of lefty skill in fooling a lot of the people for at least some of the time, 100% white descendants of the conquistadors have established a profitable line in passing themselves off as "people of color" who are being oppressed by "whites", lol."

Charles Lindbergh opposed our entry into WW2 - just like 80% of Americans. His views weren't "reprehensible" unless you think 80% of America is reprehensible.

Statues of Lee were often put up because Lee represented the spirit reconciliation between North and South. Lee told the South to put the war behind them and move on as Americans.

Leftists want to destroy America 1.O, this is what its all about. 2 Years from now the NYT will be running "thoughtful" articles on whether we rename Washington State and Washington DC. With the Left, it never ends.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, Americans wanted Hitler to lose, they just wanted the Brits and Russians to do the fighting. Weirdly, very few people wanted to go get killed. Of course, there were plenty journalists, females and old men, who were willing to fight to the last young man to kill Hitler.

Charles Lindbergh actually broke wartime regulations to fly combat missions in WW2 - as a civilian. But of course, he was a "Nazi" so bleah on that.

Angel-Dyne said...Look, as much as I agree that Stephen "Hitler" Foster's bones should be dug up and his soul anathematized, time is short, and Nazis and KKKers in their hundreds of thousands are jack-booting their way across the land, reportedly heading to the Lindbergh terminal at MPS to join forces - which if they succeed, God help us all.

MSP renamed their terminals a couple of years ago, and they are now Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.Kind of like Dr. Seuss and Thing 1 and Thing 2.

"My test goes to what are they remembered for - if it's something that we choose to celebrate (i.e., the founding), then absolutely, leave it. If it's something that we don't (role in the confederacy, with no other substantial historical significance), then we shouldn't celebrate that with a monument. ...

"I don't think that it's editing history to remove monuments - those are placed specifically to celebrate, not to denote history. There are other mechanisms for history alone. The editing history argument would indicate that no monuments could ever be removed, which can't be right."

I agree with all of that. I also think the way the subject is depicted matters. For example, a statue of Robert E. Lee during the Mexican-American War or surrendering at the Battle of Appomattox Court House or a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest addressing the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association would be in keeping with what we wish to honor.

Agree with Hunter!Being from Nebraska, Paterno was the one I voted needed to come down. Also Nebraska needs to be retroactively warded the 1992 national championship which was won through fraud. https://youtu.be/3XiH8mxa-Z0 I would probably go further and insist that Paterno's body be exhumed, dismembered and reburied underneath the shower tiles in the Penn State locker room.

Lee wasn't a politician or a secessionist. He opposed secession. Nor was a big slave holder. He inherited slaves from his father-in-law and as required by his Will freed them in the middle of the Civil War.

People seem incapable of understanding that for people like Lee the Civil war wasn't about Slaves. It was about states rights. Lee considered himself a Virginian first and an American second. As did almost all Virginians in 1860.

Left Bank of the Charles: Gosh, New York Times readers understand the difference between George Washington and Jefferson Davis.

For now.

There was a time (the day before yesterday) when the average NYT reader had a rather more nuanced view of Lee than your own moronic comic-book take here. Just like the average NYT reader, not too long ago, was laughing at the wingnuts who were so stupid that they believed crazy-talk about how laws allowing "gay marriage" (ludicrous idea that nobody was promoting!) were just around the corner.

I look forward to observing how your views "evolve" on the Washington question in the next few years.

For example, a statue of Robert E. Lee during the Mexican-American War or surrendering at the Battle of Appomattox Court House or a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest addressing the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association would be in keeping with what we wish to honor.

8/30/17, 1:02 PM

Do you honestly believe the Left will honor such fine distinctions? They attacked a statue that depicted a Confederate soldier surrendering his sword.

White southerners now, by and large, vote Republican. The Left wants to punish them for that - and Leftists also want to erase and rewrite American history.

That is all this is about. Nobody on the other side is interested in quibbles and nuances.

The real experts in the business of destroying monuments are ISIS commanders. The progressive leftists should contract with them to prepare a list of all the monuments in the United States that have to come down. This will end all the bickering.

That would make it really easy--the answer would be "all statues." And all photographic images, all paintings, all tapestries, etc. All are forbidden under Islam.

Is racial tolerance a greater virtue than marital fidelity? Robert E. Lee was faithful to his wife. Martin Luther King was not. By toppling Robert E. Lee and enshrining Martin Luther King aren't we, to some extent, celebrating adultery. Robert E Lee was a handsome man and a hero to Confederate women.He could have gotten lucky many times if he so chose, but, outside of an occasional masturbatory episode with a racy photo of Li,y Langtry, he remained true to his wife. I wonder why more feminists don't come to his defense.

Charles Lindbergh opposed our entry into WW2 - just like 80% of Americans. His views weren't "reprehensible" unless you think 80% of America is reprehensible.

Rcocean, I didn't say Lindbergh's views were reprehensible. Here is what I actually said: Charles Lindbergh was a man of tremendous accomplishments [the famous flight being only a minor one]. That these should be cancelled out by his dubious political views is reprehensible.

This episode in crazy is really beyond the pale stupid. For the last one hundred years nobody gave one shit about these stones and the inhabitants of the towns in which the statues resided probably could not name the person on the horse. Black people were not swooning with sorrow and triggered by their silent presence there in the square or in the park that nobody walked through anymore. It is fucking maddening to think about it and to observe the otherwise normal people who have leapt on the idea that these images have some drag on the future of African Americans, are some constant irritant to them, trigger them. It is nonsense. It is wrong. It is stupid. It will be regretted.

Danno: MSP renamed their terminals a couple of years ago, and they are now Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.Kind of like Dr. Seuss and Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Really? I went through MSP last fall and I could've sworn Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 were still signed "Lindbergh" and "Humphrey" along with the Seuss designations. A quick google seems to confirm that they are still officially so named. (I was a bit surprised that the usual suspects hadn't yet chimped-out over that. I suspect it's because the name doesn't mean anything to them. Just like they probably don't know who Neil Armstrong was, either.)

I really like Vice President Pence's idea of putting up more statues. The park where the Robert E. Lee statue stands in Charlottesville, Virginia has been renamed Emancipation Park. Charlottesville should put up a statue of the Rock of Chickamauga, Union General and Virginian George Henry Thomas, and of Mary Bowser, a former Virginia slave who was a Union spy in the Confederate White House.

And while they are at it, Charlottesville could put up statues of Nat Turner and John Brown, if the idea is to honor the spirit of rebellion. Really, there is no reason that park couldn't be filled to the brim with statues.

Michael: It is nonsense. It is wrong. It is stupid. It will be regretted.

Yes, it will, but if these things play out according to form, those of us who have been pointing out that this isn't about what all the nice, fair-minded people seem to think it's all about will probably get blamed for "poisoning the well", or something. ("If you insensitive fogeys had just let them take down all the statues of that loser traitor Lee without a fuss...).

As we entered the 21st century, only 3 things separated African Americans from true equality: the criminal justice system, the public education system, and confederate statuary. Have successfully reformed the first two of these, it is now time to take the last and final step to the promised land.

@ Bay Area Guy Michael K can tell you all about Dartmouth and its founding but here's the real story:

"Oh, Eleazar Wheelock was a very pious man;He went into the wilderness to teach the Indian,With a Gradus ad Parnassum, a Bible and a drum,And five hundred gallons of New England rum.".................."They founded Dartmouth College, and the big chief matriculated.Eleazar was the faculty, and the whole curriculumWas five hundred gallons of New England rum.Fill the Bowl up! Fill the bowl up!"

As for Harvard it was founded by a bunch of uptight Puritans - it didn't last long:

"During the 1700s and early 1800s frequent riots occurred at Harvard. Some were savage. In 1818 all of the crockery in the commons was smashed during a spree. The historian William Prescott was blinded in one eye by a fiercely thrown crust of bread. The most serious disturbance erupted in 1823. As a result of the unrest, 43 seniors (over half of the class) were expelled before graduation. The list included names from the Commonwealth’s most prominent families – Adams, Amory, Choate, Coolidge, Crowninshield, Loring, Pickering, Sturgis, and Sumner."

I think we should all pitch in and get Ann a subscription to the WSJ, since very few of us subscribe to the NYT, or deign to read it. I trust Ann's recommendations but, if I do link to her stories, I run out of NYT articles about the 4th of the month and I won't pay even when Ann sends me there.

MollyExactly. And when the last statue is down the little black boys and girls will read at grade level and will have fathers at home and rap "music" will no longer have the n word in every verse and motherfucker will no longer be noun, verb and pronoun.

No doubt replaced by new statues of politically-correct luminaries such as Arthur Ashe.

Worse. They will probably be replaced by no-talent post-modernists that slam a few pieces of corroded iron together with an arc welder and call it art. They won't even bother painting it, to represent income inequality or some such.

Angel-Dyne said..."Really? I went through MSP last fall and I could've sworn Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 were still signed "Lindbergh" and "Humphrey" along with the Seuss designations."

They have left some of the existing signage in place, apparently to avoid confusion. On the MSP website notice the Lindbergh and Humphrey are in much smaller font, after the termial number designation.

rcocean said..."Lee wasn't a politician or a secessionist. He opposed secession. Nor was a big slave holder. He inherited slaves from his father-in-law and as required by his Will freed them in the middle of the Civil War.

People seem incapable of understanding that for people like Lee the Civil war wasn't about Slaves. It was about states rights. Lee considered himself a Virginian first and an American second. As did almost all Virginians in 1860."

All true, he opposed slavery. His work after the Civil War to reunite the Union and heal sectional wounds is why on his death statues were erected in the North and South to honor him.

There's a bust of my g-g-grandfather, Wm A Graham, in the old NC Capitol rotunda.He was a MAJOR slaveholder and Confederate senator, but also a unionist, Whig VP candidate, and SecNav for Fillmore. He was elected to the US House during Reconstruction, but not seated because of whiteness. Some, if not all, of the other 3 busts were also slaveholders.

NC public monuments are somewhat protected by 2015 state law, and it had better work, though I don't trust our Dem governor.

George Washington. Despite being a slave owner and slightly incompetent general, still the greatest American who ever lived. That's because unlike Europeans, Americans have always looked at the up-side of an individual instead of condemning him by his faults. To me that is the quintessential American characteristic.

I see a red door and I want it painted blackNo colors anymore, I want them to turn blackI see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothesI have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted blackWith flowers and my love, both never to come backI see people turn their heads and quickly look awayLike a new born baby it just happens every day

I look inside myself and see my heart is blackI see my red door, I must have it painted blackMaybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the factsIt's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

If the government was recruiting soldiers today to head south and fight one of the bloodiest wars in history at the time, to free people from slavery, we all know it would be the RepRepublicans who fought, while Democrats would be protesting against it on every Main Street, and telling the government to stay out of it.

The parties haven't changed, no Democrat could write The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It would be "One,two, three, what are we fighting for.

As a libertarian (you know, one of those weirdoes who think their lives and property belong to themselves and not the "liberal" Hive), my first question would be: "Who owns the land? Who's paying for the statues?" If you own the land and want to pay to put up a statue of Hitler on it, that's your business. The old libertarian battle cry used to be "Sell the streets!" Maybe it should be "Sell the statues!" The Daughters of the Confederacy could buy the statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, et al, and just thumb their noses at the "liberals" who object to them. (You know, because "liberals" are just SOOO pro-freedom.) But if the taxpayer still has to pay for statues, I'd prefer that someone go through THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY, Jim Powell's great collection of mini-biographies of freedom's champions, and erect statues of everyone there's a chapter about in that book.

Although I don't think Powell has a section on Harriet Tubman. We could tear down the statues of racist, State-fellating Democrat Woodrow Wilson and replace them with statues of Harriet Tubman. As Glenn Reynolds said when there was discussion of replacing Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill with Harriet Tubman, "Good! Instead of a slave-owning Democrat, we'll have an anti-slavery gun-toting Republican!"

The problem with raising a statue to John Brown is that we don't have the skills anymore, somebody would head down to Home Depot for some wood and a framing nailer and build a scaffold. How depressing. Are these the people we want ruling over us? People who will never leave us be?

I went to a museum in Santa Fe which had pictures of the Acoma people pulling a Hispanic off his horse and killing him. My guide explained that the Hispanic was taking Acoma food in famine times so they revolted and killed him. His father then sent soldiers who cut off one foot from each of the Acoma men. This father, whose name I forget, led the group from old Mexico which settled around Santa Fe and basically founded New Mexico so there is a statue of him near Santa Fe. My museum guide told me that a group of young Pueblo people went up to that statue one dark night fairly recently and they sawed off one of the feet of the statue.

This is a true story. There is a symmetry about the action that I admired. It makes pulling down statues at random look barbaric. Why not know enough about the statue is question so that an artistic addition conveys the part of history being suppressed?

Is it just me, or does it seem like the NYT is subtly, belatedly asking the question that Trump asked and was mocked for? Just like they are starting to come around and condemn violence from the left too. Not that they would ever acknowledge that Trump brought it up first.

The particular Roosevelt statue the NYT refers to is without question designed to convey the message of white supremacy. The Museum founders - WF Osborn, Madison Grant and others - believed it wholeheartedly. And old NYT articles can no doubt be found praising the message.

"The historian William Prescott was blinded in one eye by a fiercely thrown crust of bread."

People don't read Prescott anymore, which is a much greater tragedy than any number of statues.

Especially on the subject of conquistadors.

His "Conquest of Mexico" is a masterpiece, became the standard, and, in translation, became the Spanish-language standard history also, for 150 years or more. my father and great-grandfather had editions of that, and we still have a 19th century Spanish illustrated edition with lovely woodcuts.

Its still a cracking good read, much more sprightly than Hugh Thomas modern one (Conquest of Mexico), which is today's standard.

Few people weren't what we'd call racists in 1910. But not all of them were cruel bastards who promoted hatred and mistreatment of their fellow man. Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to his White House to break bread with the president - the first time this had ever been done. For that, Roosevelt gets credit - especially given how severe the backlash was against him for doing so.

Technically you're right that Roosevelt was a "progressive". But "progressive" meant something quite different then than it does today. Roosevelt would likely have called today's "progressives" something quite different ... Statist? .... Communist?

Today, its Robert E. Lee, tomorrow George Washington, next week FDR. Next month, YOU.

ROFLMAO! Get your slaves and Japanese interns while you can!

Again, hard to see what's so worth commemorating about killing 600,000 Americans so that you can circumvent the constitution to find a way to keep 5 times as many in bondage - but hey! That's conservative Republican logic. I don't claim to understand it.

Many things people did throughout history that looking back we understand to be wrong now, even though we understand why they didn't then. Killing 600,000 Americans so that you can violate the constitution by forcing the spread of bondage beyond the five times as many you already held doesn't seem to meet that standard.

You guys should feel free to find heroism in whatever form you feel it appeals to you, though.

Ritmo is a perfect example of the post-French monarchy attitude of emphasizing the negative about people at the expense of everything good they did. I suspect Ritmo would have been right at home on the 'Committee for Public Safety'.

But "progressive" meant something quite different then than it does today.

I don't think it does. The contexts change but the direction doesn't.

And then sometimes even the contexts don't change all that much. For instance, T.R. was a huge trust buster. He would have prosecuted the Microsoft of the 1990s with zeal, as did the administration at the time. It was only with Bush, and the change in administration, that it was felt that letting anti-competitive monopolies violate anti-trust statutes was not worth prosecuting any more.

That change in ideology was long in coming, but it started with the so-called "Austrian" economists of the 1970s and beyond, only to finally come into vogue in the government with Reagan onward. Trickle down and all those other phony ideas. Prior to that they were all realistic Keynesians who accepted what is still common knowledge in economics: That every economy is mixed; none are truly free or controlled.

We made allies with the communists during WWII because they were much less of a threat than the fascist Axis powers and shared a common enemy. Afterwards, their totalitarianism and imperial ambitions made them the threat that we successfully contained during the Cold War. But that doesn't mean we could re-write the rules of economics just to motivate us against that threat - as the conservatives who took over the Republican party after Nixon and Ford tried to do, and did.

Western Europe, as most advanced industrial democracies, continue to have a greater social welfare safety net than we do - despite getting their cues from us during the FDR administration. None of them are communist; they just understand that competition for its own sake leads to fascism and the wealth extremes that gave rise to both Hitler and the communists. As well as Trump.

Well Alex, some people are Nazis and some people are Nazi sympathizers or apologists. If you're making excuses for those marching in Charlottesville - or marching with them outright, then you're at the least a Nazi apologist. Or a Confederate sympathizer - whatever other positions you hold.

FDR didn't do shit about segregation - because he couldn't. Politics of the time didn't allow for it. But he did manage to advance a lot of other good things. That's wholly different from being a defender/proponent of segregation, though. The segregationists supported him because he was an awesome president and his publics works programs helped them greatly. Same way he wasn't a Stalinist just because he used Stalin's help to defeat the greater evil.

So now we have the modern 'Red Guard' in the form of college students enacting 'safe spaces', berating white students for their 'privilege', shouting down conservative speakers, pulling fire alarms, etc...

I can't recall, maybe I'm mistaken but has Ritmo ever criticized these American Red Guards?

And while they are at it, Charlottesville could put up statues of Nat Turner and John Brown, if the idea is to honor the spirit of rebellion. Really, there is no reason that park couldn't be filled to the brim with statues.

Or, since the land and the statue were given to the city, if they don't want the gift as it was made, they could give them back to the descendants of the donor.

Downtown Rapid City has statues of every American president. I say we start weeding them out beginning with all the slaveholders. And also Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan because although they were not slaveholders themselves, they expanded slavery by adding slave states to the union thereby setting the stage for the Civil War.

Then Woodrow Wilson needs to go as he was a segregationist and eugenicist. And Teddy Roosevelt, also a eugenicist, who hunted big game for trophies.

I think Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson should go because as the only two presidents ever to be impeached, they disgraced the office. Also Warren Harding because if he hadn't died first, he surely would have been impeached for Teapot Dome. And, of course, Nixon because please. And Jerry Ford because he pardoned Nixon and, besides, he was never actually elected president so who cares.

And do we really need William Henry Harrison? After all, the only thing he ever did as president was deliver the longest inauguration address on record which led to pneumonia and his death a month after he took office. The selected-not-elected George W. Bush has to go because he lied us into war and, anyhow, he was just a beard since Dick Cheney, Bush's brain, was the real president. And let's not give FDR a pass. He put American citizens in internment camps simply because they were of Japanese heritage. By the same token, Abraham Lincoln imprisoned thousands of citizens only suspected of Confederate sympathies and bestowed unprecedented war powers on himself so who needs him.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure with a little more thought and some research, I could come up with lots more.

...you better be REAL careful how you throw that around if you don't want a defamation lawsuit.

It's not possible to defame a pseudonym, nimrod. Or even a detached first name. Someone would have to know your real identity here for that to matter. As it is impossible to claim defamation over use of the generic "you," as an example in reference to no one in particular.

Sure Ritmo claims to be a peaceful socialist, but reality has shown that there is no such thing.

There are actually such things all over Europe. (And if I said "nimrod" would you claim defamation? You'd probably have to argue in court, among so many other things, that a "nimrod" is actually a concrete thing like a turtle, a bee or a nightstand. And that being thought one hurt your career.)

How about instead I called you a fascist - because that's what someone who needs an authoritarian strong-man like Trump to enforce such economic immobility actually is? In any event, there's no such thing as a peaceful fascist, or even a peaceful faux capitalist, because extremes this pronounced have never survived absent an authoritarian leader like Trump who could force his will on the people - just like his Republicans have been doing with the gerrymander.

Alex asserts: I suspect Ritmo would have been right at home on the 'Committee for Public Safety'.

And he's probably never heard of it.

I've certainly never obsessed over it, the way you like to do.

If you're interested in being a political dramatist, you'd best look closer to our time. The economic conditions you keep agitating for certainly preceded Revolutionary France, but they also prevailed in Weimar Germany and in Italy prior to Mussolini. And those were guys who made claims for what they do closer to how Trump presents himself than the French did.

"The economic conditions you keep agitating for certainly preceded Revolutionary France, but they also prevailed in Weimar Germany and in Italy prior to Mussolini. And those were guys who made claims for what they do closer to how Trump presents himself than the French did. "

As lunatic statement on economics and history as has ever been written. Stunning.

As lunatic statement on economics and history as has ever been written.

An assertion as unevidenced as all your others. How high a gini coefficient are you looking to set as the standard for America? How much income inequality and economic immobility do you prefer?

I think Nick Hanauer has more credibility on the argument than you do. You're just a first-name/semi-pseudonymous douchebag on Blogger. I'm pretty sure he's much richer than you, too - so obviously in your feeble mind, that makes him right anyway. As long as you can't argue the point and only the person.

Go ahead and make your claim for why you think the economic conditions of Weimar Germany and 1920s Italy were good things, you incompetent bluster-fucker.

If I were forced to choose, I'd rather have Mussolini than Robespierre.

The times were different. By the early 20th c., politicians should have known better. Plus, he allied himself with the Nazis - an even greater moral and social evil than whatever confused chaos the French revolutionaries were playing out with their own experiment.

Point being, jack up your country's gini coefficient the way "Michael" and his hangers-on here want to do, and you get a violent revolution - or one less violent but one allied with a horrifyingly awful cause like the Nazis that only got off lightly on account of Italy's earlier vanquishing during the war and American largesse and greater focus on the more determined enemies allied with the feckless fascist Italians.

Mussolini. What a fucking coward. His own fucking fascists deposed him two years before the end of the year on account of their lack of confidence in his "leadership," so he escaped into the loving arms of his Nazis. Spared Italy a worse fate by virtue of his own failures as a leader, one who could not even survive politically let alone put up the fight that his Nazi friends did, and left the Allies with little interest in bombing the shit out of them as extensively as they did to BOTH of his benefactors.

Sad but true, mockturtle. Google "Teddy Roosevelt eugenics" or "race suicide." Many historians believe his racialist views influenced his foreign, immigration and domestic policies. I suppose we should just blow up Mount Rushmore in its entirety.

Its always a case of what is on offer. Robespierre (plus the succession of revolutionary regimes as a whole, and the subsequent empire) vs Mussolini is not a difficult choice, no matter WWII and every sort of hindsight.

TTMRead your lunatic statement out loud to yourself you fucking idiot. No one on this blog has "agitated" for the conditions you refer to you fucking\ moron . You are as classless and thinly educated as you are boring and that, dear boy, is saying something.

Apparently some of the people here have no objections to those who ----promoted slavery and segregation, --were friendly to Hitler and had his own daughter's brain cut up--were Klansmen and who approved of putting Americans in concentration camps because of their race,--ordered that Americans be rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps because of their race,--pursued policies that made civil war likely, and--had harbored thoughts of racial purity and would have those same persons here sterilized because three generations of imbeciles are enough.

No one on this blog has "agitated" for the conditions you refer to you fucking\ moron .

Tell me what policies you do agitate for and what economic/social consequences can be expected of them. Moron.

Stop being a crypto-corporatist. Come out, into the sunlight, and say what you mean. (If you even know what you mean).

Go on. Let me know what economic policies you favor. You probably don't even know. That's how obsessed you are with your own immediate situation. I'll bet you don't even know what you're in favor of. Just an opportunist with no principles or even ideology in any way, shape or form.

Prove that wrong. We both know you're floppier than a goddamn crepe. You probably don't even know what side of the road you want to drive on. Just a total talk-out-of-both-sides-of-your-mouth guy. Prove it wrong.

TTMYou are arguing with yourself again. Lay off the booze jackoff. Re-read the Nick Hanauer dickhead, this time for his solution to the terrible problem of income inequality. Ah, there isn't one is there? Let me know what economic policies you favor. Let us know why you are so obsessed with your own personal failure that you invent principles you have that are not common to the rest of us. Go ahead if you have economic polices which you favor and which you can support as a way out of the horrible income inequality that leaves all except the poorest among us richer than Nero. But while the rich continue to steal from the poor I have discussed with my fellow richies that I get ti steak yours, however meager.

If I were forced to choose, I'd rather have Mussolini than Robespierre.

Good choice. Robespierre constantly harped on the theme of patriotism, and yet in his short career, his "government" killed more Frenchmen than invading Austrians. A funny kind of patriot was he who wanted a France with only one patriot in it. Consider the monument Robespierre sits upon as he executes the executioner. "Cy-gyt toute la France" is old fashioned spelling for ci-gît toute la France — here lies all France, the logical end of the Jacobin Terror. The obelisk is surmounted by a burning lamp, a symbol of Robespierre's invented religion, the cult of the Supreme Being, though in practical terms the only "supreme being" the French could presiding at his ludicrous festivities was L'incorruptible himself. In that way, Il Duce was a mirror image of the French dictator and our own 44th President of the United States.

Mussolini ran Italy from 1922 until he was deposed by his own Fascisti in 1943, three years shy of Saddam Hussein's reign — not a bad run when one considers that unlike Saddam "Little Ben" (Mussolini was named after Benito Juarez) wasn't running a country afloat on a sea of petroleum. During most of his 21 years in power, Mussolini was admired by many influential persons including not a few leading American political figures and journalists, particularly during the ill-starred Hoover Administration. Toothless dismisses Il Duce as a "fucking coward", which is quite amusing coming from someone whose specialty is dispensing insults from behind the shield of ever-shifting anonymity and entertainingly ironic given the fact the Mussolini pioneered much of the economic policy of the Democratic Party.

Henry Ford gave Hitler a copy of The Elders of Zion, Hitler had never heard of it. Ford was apparently a more advanced anti-Semite than Hitler. That's really going some. The industrial plants that Henry Ford had created were essential for our victory over Hitler in WWII. Should Ford be remembered as the industrialist who enabled our victory or as an anti-Semite? Some Ford Foundation scholar should research this tricky issue.

Mussolini had a considerable degree of romanticism about him in his time - till about 1935-ish he was a fairly popular figure in the UK. Until he started challenging Britains imperial interests that is.

ref - "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" - the book and movie are both excellent. There were quite a few "Jean Brodies".

As for the evil of Mussolini, its not too well understood that much of what was disliked about the Italian fascist state - its international aggressiveness, and much of the brutality of its internal administration - was carried over from pre-fascist Italy. The Italian state and society was full of elements that were later to define fascism.

William... that's my point previously. That unless a person is 'literally Hitler', Americans will tend to look at the balance of a person's life and IF the person contributed more positive than negative we go with that. I'm Jewish, I know all about Henry Ford's antisemitism, BUT would I go back in history and get Henry Ford aborted? Then America loses WW2 because we never invent the assembly line manufacturing. Typical leftists focus on ONLY the evil at the expense of the good. They miss the forest through the trees.

In his tragedy, King Lear, the Duke of Albany warns of "striving to better, oft we mar what's well" and in Sonnet 103:

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,To mar the subject that before was well?

Arguably the only two things that significantly changed in Italy (or its foreign relations) with the coming of the fascist state were the increase in economic statism and the nature and effectiveness of the national propaganda. Fascism had a more consistent style and branding, and the government put more effort into it.

Italian imperialism, and most of its bad behavior, pre-existed fascism.